This invention pertains to viscosity measurements for fluids and liquids under remote or pressurized conditions, and particularly to a viscometer device suitable for making on-line viscosity measurements of fluids inside a reactor vessel under high pressure and temperature conditions.
There is a great need in reaction processes, such as those using fluidized beds and ebullating beds of catalyst, to measure fluid or liquid viscosity inside reactors operating at high pressure and temperature conditions, such as 100-10,000 psig pressure and 100.degree.-1,000.degree. F. temperature. A major problem with previous attempts at directly measuring fluid viscosity in pressurized vessels under such conditions has been obtaining a suitably tight low friction seal between a conventional rotating shaft type viscometer and the wall of the high pressure vessel. The present invention eliminates use of such rotating shafts and seals by using the known principle of measuring fluid viscosity by means of a float member freely falling through the fluid, but accomplishing such action remotely within a pressurized reactor.